Philadelphia
 

Since it deserves a thread just like the other cities...and since it's more than cheesesteaks...here are a few sites to check out from our lovely city:

Phila Vacation and Travel Planning Guide

The Liberty Bell

Independence National Historical Park

The Franklin Institute

Please Touch Museum

South Street District

Chestnut Hill

Philly.com

Philadelphia Art Museum

Saint Jack's
 

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com..._king_pxw3.jpg

This is a copy of an ad published this month in a Philadelphia weekly which spoofed King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand whilke promoting a Thai-themed barroom, Saint Jack's restaurant in Olde City Philadelphia. Apparently the Thai government doesn't think the illustration depicting the 74-year-old monarch dressed like an urban hipster was funny. For days, the restaurant has been besieged with angry phone calls from Thai diplomats demanding that she withdraw the ad and apologize - or risk souring relations between Thailand and the United States. (AP Photo

It's "Old" City. But don't worry...our transit system made that mistake too. You can see the "e" blocked out at the 2nd Street El Station. :)

Didn't the Thai government hate "The King and I" too?

Fourth celebrations
 

Is anyone from the Cellar doing anything special (meeting-wise) for the Fourth?


I'm visiting for a few days and would like to meet people and watch fireworks and stuff like that.

I'm even up for spirited debate over drinks and music. Even table dances.

Or is it going to be just me and Maggie again?

Brian

I guess it's just me this time
 

No problem. I'll just terrorize the city on my motorcycle (in full leather regalia of course)
park on the sidewalks, lane-share, make use of the never-before used "slip-off" mufflers and
wear a clamshell helmet and goggles. I think I'll turf the Art Museum and call it art, crash a
backyard BBQ by passing myself off as long-lost cousin Larry, hit the pubs downtown and drink
'til I'm more stupid and generally have a rousing good time.

Y'all sit by the pool and be bored.

Brian

Re: I guess it's just me this time
 

Actually I wish we had a pool. I dunno what the WX is down your way but up here it's stiflingly hot and humid; you won't wear leather except when in motion and maybe not then, unless youure a *much* bigger perv than I think even you are. I'm just returned from a trip out to see Lisa, so I've been more-or-less off the board for a while.

July 4 is my oldest kid's birthday though.

It's hot and humid here too.

And I am the biggest perv you'll ever know. I wear leather when I'm riding no matter what.
It's the only thing between me and 210 lbs of ground hamburger. It's a ventilated jacket though so anything over 25 and I'm cool enough. The helmet is the tough part. It has a "vent" but it's mostly decoration. And cracking the visor puts too much air into my eyes for comfort. My contacts dry out and get blown away and then I'm blind. I hate it when that happens.

My uncle is a firecracker baby too. Happy B-day greetings to your child.

I'm leaving in ten minutes and will arrive tonight. Lock up your daughters and dogs!

Brian

Size doesn't matter. :-)
Moving air can be fairly warm and still be comfortable. This is one of the advantages to an airplane over a motorcycle, though....I learned to fly from a guy who on days like today would give me a takeoff clearance of "Cleared for takeoff. Climb to and maintain 70 degrees."

Who established America's first volunteer fire corps, and where?

Located just up the street from the Betsy Ross House.

William Penn himself (who is *not* the answer to the trivia question) had a serious preocupation with the dangers of urban fire, haveing witnessed the great London fire of 1666. This is why he planned his city in the space between two rivers, so that water for firefighting should be readily available.


http://xroads.virginia.edu/~CAP/PENN/philmap.gif

Proof positive that it doesn't take much to make Sycamore happy: A new Krispy Kreme store will be opening at Cottman and Bustleton in the fall. No more eating stale ones from Acme or driving to Delaware for me. :)

The Krispy Kreme opened this morning...such a big deal that Fox Philadelphia was on location during their morning news.

And then when a commercial for the 10 o'clock news came on, I could have sworn that I saw the Cellar's very own MaggieL, rolling with the Pink Pistols. The group's gonna be on the news tonight, eh?

UT, check your e-mail later today regarding Krispy Kreme.

Yeppers. We're hoping to grab it on tape. Wish I'd seen the promo.

OK, now I *have* seen the promo. Yesh, that's me at the range. And that was Gwen in the interview.

I happened to stop by the new Krispy Kreme this afternoon.

What a mess! The drive through line was about 30 cars deep, and traffic was being directed by a security guard. A good section of the parking lot was blocked off to accomodate the cars. The inside line was maybe 50 or so deep, complete with heated tent for those that had to stand outside (though not needed this weekend), and another security guard directing folks.

I think I'll wait another week for the buzz to wear off. :)

damn. krispy kreme delivers to the super target near my house. yeah, i know its not quite the same as getting them piping hot and fresh, but it beats waiting in line for them.

~james

One of our grocery chains here, Acme (you may have their sister store where you live--Albertson's), carries them. If you get them not long after they're delivered (which I believe is in the evening at my local store), they're not bad. But I bought some a few months ago, and they were hard as a rock. I was incredibly disappointed.

I work right next door to KYW-3, the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia. In what seems to be a trend in recent years, they have a street-level studio, which looks out onto the corner of 5th and Market. I believe that they do the morning news from this particular studio (I know they don't use it for the evening news).

One of these mornings, I am going to try and get on TV, i.e. stand outside the window and look like an ass. I'm not sure if they block off that area in the morning, but it can't hurt to try...I'll just stand out there for a minute and wave like a moron. I just have to get myself motivated enough to be down there before 7 in the morning.

I may do a casing first and see if it's possible. If so, I will post a date and time when I will try to be a TV personality. :)

Voting is currently taking place for the best pizzas in the Philadelphia area (broken down by area).

City-wise, I'm going with Santucci's, though I normally frequent the one on Knights Rd., and not O Street.

Everybody hide!
 

I'm entering town Friday, Feb 14th at or about 1 pm.

I know that every time I say that I'm coming into Phila, everyone disappears, so now I'm trying reverse psychology.

No one show up at Pat's. Or Gino's twoish.

Especially not Mitch Parker.

Brian :D

GODDAMNIT!

I'm working. :p And I can't eat cheesesteaks. :(

How long are you going to be up?

Every time Brian comes to town, something wierd happens with the weather. This time it's a huge snowstorm forecast.

Brian: The Pink Pistols will be having a luncheon with shooting afterwards on Saturday... interested?

Wolfie, you're invited too, of course.

Unless we cancel for snow... in which case Gwennie and I may just potshot squirrels and rabbits in the backyard. :-)

Apparently, slot machines are coming to horse tracks in the Commonwealth.

Can you say, "future Cellar GTG at Philadelphia Park?"

I was in town for three hours, to deliver a table and yak, and two more stuck in traffic.

I am now currently stuck in York, snowed in beyond belief.

Thank you very much Maggie for reminding the weather Gods about my arrival. :mad:

I canna go to the shooting thingie, assuming it wasn't called on account of weather. Dagney and I just aren't up to a three hour drive in snow, plus the drive back again. We'll take a raincheck though, ok?

back to digging...

Brian

founder of first fire volunteer department
 

Everybody knows it's Ben Franklin. BTW, Pat's and Geno's are way too touristy. People who grew up in South Philly never go there. ;)

More like overrated. Whenever I'm in South Philadelphia (which isn't often), I go to Philip's on Passyunk.

When I last lived in Philly, I used to go to this place At Fourth and South. Don't remember the name of it, but the cheesewhiz was sublime.:D

Don't know how long that's been, but in that area, there's Jim's, Ishkabibble's, and PhilaDeli.

Definitely Jim's. Lived in this father-son-and-holy-ghost house in a courtyard near there. Smallest house in the city, I swear. Could not get my dresser up the circular staircase, so it stayed in the living room. The bed literally took up all the floor space in the bedroom. Kitchen in the basement. Was cool, and so very urbane at the time.

BTW, do you know that Krispy Kreme will send you directions for making a wedding cake out of their donuts? Apparently very popular in the South.

WARNING
 

I'll be entering the city limits tomorrow, Friday the 27th.

Danger time begins at ten am and continues until two pm.

You have been warned!

Brian

May the gods have mercy on us all... ;)

Re: WARNING
 

Ummm Brian? Every time you've been in Philly lately, it's snowed... should we tell them to get their shovels ready?

Dagney

They DID mention possible snow showers early next week...

Oh, and today's the 28th...not the 27th. Damnit...and you wonder why no one shows up? You fuck 'em up with the dates! :)

You'll notice he didn't even bother to try to set anything up ... must have been a quick in and out visit, with only a side trip for a cheesesteak in the schedule.

Wolf is right, I was just in and out...thus the small snowfall.

Next time I make it snow in JULY!!!! muhahahaha! :p

Think twice before avoiding my next GTG/munch the weekend after next...that would be [checks the calendar},
uhm... April 12th. That's it.

Beware your spring plantings! :eek:

Brian

Don't put away that snowshovel just yet
 

I will be coming to town (again) with Dagney this weekend, April 12-13 (yes, I'm sure of the dates this time). We're looking for people to meet (if y'all are brave enough) and munch with. Plus ideas on WHERE to munch/drink/party.

We're open either day, and Maggie is tenatively scheduled to attend, dependant on her schedule.

So, anyone not afraid of a little snow?

Brian

I will be driving north on the 11th.

Please do not even THINK of Phila on that day so as not to interfere with my plans.

I don't mind if I get snowed in once I'm there, however. ;)

Thank you.

Just for that wisecrack
 

I'm altering my plans to arrive on Friday. Early Friday. Possible even Thursday night if I can swing it.

And I'll leave in plenty of time for the snow to melt so you can come back.

So there! :p

Brian

Hmmm...a possibility of not going to Pat's or Geno's is good...

Hell, depending on exactly when and where, I just MIGHT...MIGHT make an appearance.

make a suggestion then.

We're open. Personally, I'm leaning toward Pudges on rt 202 in Norristown. They make the best hoagies! IMO, of course...ymmv.

But Maggie likes another place whose name escapes me.

You probably have a favorite watering hole of your own.

If we can all agree on one, we'll have ourselves a party!

Otherwise, I'll subject my loved one to a Pat's steak, which I personally prefer over Geno's. Or Lorenzo's. Those too!
Then a nice shopping trip through the Italian market, which still has a few Italians in it. Including my favorite game butcher.

Brian

Depends on when you want to do it, Brian. I work during the day in East Falls, so if you folks want to do it Friday night, it's cool. I don't want to interrupt anyone else's plans though if you were set on doing it at another time.

Welp
 

I won't be getting TO Dagney until seven or eight o'clock Friday night. That's out near Harrisburg.

The there's our new Friday night tradition of watching TV and cuddling to get through.

Saturday is better, until five or so. Then it's dinner and a Yanni concert at seven (starts at eight). Sunday is currently wide open, but I think Pudge's is closed then. Wolf? Can you remind me of their hours and/or website?

I have several things that are up in the air family-wise and I won't know until St morning about that. But if you shoot for afternoon/lunch you should be golden.

Brian

Yanni?

YANNI?!

Oh...so anyway, yeah, lunch either day sounds good. Since I'll have a car, I'm alright with going out to the burbs. And I'm not overly knowledgeable with places out there.

Yup..
 

Yanni :)

But only because I want to go!

Dagney

I kinda suspected, but I didn't want to ask.

(Hoo boy, Keymaster seems to have surely met his match) ;)

Well, i'm sure hoping so :)

Sorry we won't get to run into you this weekend Wolf, I was sorta looking forward to putting a face with a name.

But the spring (if it is spring, it can't really decide) is young, and summer is coming, so I'm sure we'll be heading on a few more road trips into the city....

And he keeps talking about teaching me to shoot....(I've never ever held a gun in my life....this should be interesting)

Dags

Yanni...*shakes his head in disbelief*...Yanni...

There ARE worse fates yanno...I could have asked if he'd want to go to a Cher concert with me....*grin*

heck, even for that I'd need to check my sanity!

Dagney

I absolutely also regret our missing each other this time! We'll definitely make it happen one of these days.

I've been looking forward to meeting you!

Brian's a great teacher with respect to firearms handling (probably other things as well). Listen to what he has to say. You will probably have a MUCH better time than you expected.

Brian, you'll get a kick out of this ... I was going through a box o' stuff that I have to toss out and found the Firearms Safety Brochure that you gave me that first day out.

The only place I heard/saw this today was on WAMU-AM in Washington: Apparently, Big Ed is trying to convince US Airways to move their headquarters from Arlington, VA (DC suburbs) to Pennsylvania (based on the situation, possibly Pittsburgh). Did anybody else hear this today?

Wow...our mayor is making national headlines. (It's a C-O-N-spiracy!)

"Police have been routinely sweeping the mayor’s office for surveillance devices for nearly 20 years. "

Mayoral tradition started by Hizzoner Mr. Green or his successor Mr. Goode do you think? (Frank's been gone more than 20 years.)

Better story than our local hospital gaining national attention.

Found a better version of the story other than the mention of it being on BO'R

Fool, I posted that story about AMH in the football thread like a week ago.

(And I wish to God someone would leak that asshole's name...the press would have a field day with it.)

This whole bug issue is getting better and better. John Street was hanging out with Katie Couric this morning. Several Democratic officials are suggesting that the Feds are trying to steer PA towards Dubya in '04. Mayor Street himself says he's not a "target," but others say he could be a "subject" of an investigation.

As el sicómoro sees it:

--I'm not voting for Street next month. I don't think he's done enough for the city, that whole situation with the paramedics was awful, there's corruption around every corner, and we're further in the financial hole than I think we should be.

Unfortunately, I suspect the majority of the black community will vote for Street b/c he's black. And a majority of the white community will vote for Katz b/c he's white. Stoopid. And note, this is a city where registered Dems outnumber Reps 4 to 1 (last I heard).

My own woman is hesitant about voting for a Republican...she's almost ready to not vote. (Though in her case, it's merely the GOP/Dem factor, not the race factor.)

Still though, fuck that. I want the best person in there to do the job. In this case, I think that person is a Republican.

--It IS suspicious that the FBI immediately says, "Nope, this had nothing to do with the mayoral race." But the fucking moronic Dems immediately suggest that the Bush administration is trying to steal the show here. Stoopid...after all, we elected a Democrat for governor last year.

--People are clamoring for the truth to come out. Ummm...but what if that jeopardizes the case?

--My own suspicion is that it involves either the mayor's brother, the airport contracts situation, the parking tickets situation, or one of Street's associates. All equally good...too hard to pick just one.

Ah, I feel much better now. :)

Oh. I suck. I will admit to having intermittently read The Cellar over the last coupla weeks. It's been busy and I've been working days which is extremely disorienting for me.

Quote:

(And I wish to God someone would leak that asshole's name...the press would have a field day with it.)

Would be interesting to know, but only as a matter of curiosity, truly. Doesn't matter much to me who the guy is (okay, I'd look to see if he's been at my hospital, but that's about it) You know what ... this info is probably readily available in the praise likely being heaped upon the fellah on the white power websites.

The Klan is a lot more active in Southeastern PA that one might expect, but the real activity tends to center around Chester County. Very occasionally I've admitted someone with a wallet full of "your business has been patronized by a member of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan" business cards. Been a while, though.

Quote:

My own woman is hesitant about voting for a Republican...she's almost ready to not vote. (Though in her case, it's merely the GOP/Dem factor, not the race factor.)

It's really not as difficult as she might think. It actually all starts with voting the issues rather than the party. Kinda snowballs from there.

Quote:

Still though, fuck that. I want the best person in there to do the job. In this case, I think that person is a Republican.

I think Sam shoulda won the last time out, but I'm just an observer in this race. My only real contact with the city of Philadelphia tends to be when it's residents dribble over the line and either go crazy or embark on crime sprees or both (yes, my county has it's own criminals, but a lot of them are folks stopping by to do business. In many of the drug-related murders in the county seat, and also the armed bank robberies, the perps are from Philly.

Norristown saw an increase in this kind of thing when (next door) Philly started that "Operation Sunrise", no?

Can't win the war on drugs, you can only move it.

Not really sure. I know the Crips, the Bloods, and the Latin Kings have moved into town. Like any successful business, you start your franchises in the high-population areas, then move outside of the major cities. It's certainly more convenient to be able to go down to Crack Row rather than west Philly to score, but all the other attendant problems of the drug trade have followed along, including the shootings, smash and grabs, muggings, etc.

Allentown faces the same problems, only that formerly quiet little town is getting a lot of relocatees from NYC, as is Reading.

I'm sincerely hoping that Norristown finds enough money to continue paying their police department come November 1. The idea of the PA State Police taking over the jurisdiction is more than somewhat scary.

Big Ed was in town today. Street is the subject of an FBI investigation says a federal source. There is even talk of him resigning as mayor.

Now granted, this is just talk...but damn! Maybe this IS serious.

But what could be more serious is one of the replacement candidates being mentioned: Johnny Doc. (Oh fuck no!)

Has there been any mention yet as to what he's being investigated for? I've not seen or heard anything up this way yet.

Dag

Not exactly...though there is some info in this story from our NBC affiliate.

Then there's this from KYW NewsRadio (I'm posting the full story here b/c they seem to recycle links): The name of Imam Shamsud-Din Ali is a familiar one to veteran cops.

The John Street supporter whose home and business were raided by the FBI a day after the discovery of electronic bugs in the mayor's office (see related story) has been in and out of the clutches of the law before.

During the height of Philadelphia gang wars in 1970, Clarence Fowler -- now known as Shamsud-Din Ali -- was arrested and convicted for the murder of a North Philadelphia pastor. But the only identification witness was the victim's daughter.

Ali spent six years in prison before the state Supreme Court determined that she had been shown his picture more than three months before making her identification. They called it suggestive and set him free.

Then, in 1984, the Pennsylvania House approved a bill awarding him $450,000 for a wrongful jailing. He was never charged with another crime.

The recipient of a no-bid city contract, he is now reportedly under a federal microscope.